Chapter LXV

I dropped Angel and Louis at their place and left them to their own devices for the rest of the night. My plan for the following day was to head up to Dexter to look for the man named Maynard Vaughn, who had made the straw purchase of the money order used by Mara Teller. Along the way, I intended to call at the Kopper Kettle to speak with Beth Witham, the waitress who was said to have dated Stephen Clark, a relationship that might have involved domestic abuse. Finally, there was the matter of a conversation with Bobby Ocean. That would be the morning's first work.

I was due to meet Sharon Macy in an hour at the Grill Room, but only for drinks and appetizers, the Grill Room being nobody's idea of a venue for a cheap date. The bar mixed a good old fashioned, which was Macy's cocktail of choice. Lately, Macy—she didn't like being called Sharon, even by me—had been cutting back on liquor and bar food for health reasons, so she preferred to order one old fashioned and make it last.

Macy and I had dated casually a few years previously, but circumstances and timing had dictated that we never went further, and any intimacy was limited to kissing and fumbling. It was like being back in high school, but with more bills and responsibilities. Subsequently, we drifted apart but continued to exchange nods in passing, before coming together again after a couple of guys tried to blow up my car in the parking lot of the Great Lost Bear. Macy and I had even ended up in bed, breaking long dry spells for both of us. Since then, we'd been circling each other, if less cautiously than before, in a benign form of orbital decay.

A difficulty for Macy was her position in the Portland PD, notably her role as liaison with the governor's office and other state and federal law enforcement agencies, which made it inadvisable for her to be seen on the arm of a private investigator whom many of those same agencies would like to have seen deprived of his license, or jailed. For that reason, we were discreet about where we met and avoided restaurants and bars frequented by police. No cop was likely to be eating at the Grill Room, not unless they were on the take, so we'd deemed it relatively safe, aided by dim lighting and a reserved space by the bar that allowed us to see first without being seen.

I had not yet had a chance to bring up with Macy the subject of Sabine Drew, and was wary of doing so. Apart from the fact that Macy undoubtedly held strong feelings about her due to the fallout from the Edie Brook case, both of us were mindful of trying to keep our private and professional lives separate, however futile this might ultimately prove. After all, I wasn't sure my personal and professional lives were separable even to myself, never mind the complicating factor of another human being operating in a sphere far removed from my own. Macy was career police and unlikely to cash out after twenty-five years to open a bar. We were both in our respective vocations for the long haul.

Macy and I hadn't met since I'd agreed to work the Colleen Clark case for Moxie, but she couldn't but be aware of the problems posed for us by my involvement. I knew she respected Paul Nowak as AG, and relations between his office and the Portland PD were currently better than they'd ever been, thanks in part to Macy's efforts. She was also loyal to the force, but I needed to know more about the Edie Brook affair, and wanted to establish what, if anything, the oxygen thief Furnish, lead investigator on the Clark case, had accomplished in terms of proper legwork. Steady Freddy had shared that he wasn't a fan of Furnish. This wouldn't have troubled Furnish, since he was enough of a fan of himself for two people, but Freddy had also suggested that Furnish was willing to drag his heels to please the AG's office. I suppose I could have tried raising these subjects with Macy as pillow talk, but she might have smothered me in retaliation. I was less in danger of a slow, agonizing death at the bar of the Grill Room.

I freshened up at home, and spoke briefly to Colleen.

"I want to go back to my own place tomorrow," she said. "I appreciate your kindness in letting me stay here, but I feel like a specter inhabiting the wrong house."

"Your mother raised again the possibility of staying with her for a while. I told her I'd put it to you."

"I haven't changed my mind, and I won't."

"You are aware that someone tried to set your home on fire?"

"I heard. Mom said you were going to take care of it."

"I met with the people involved," I said, "or some of them."

"What happened?"

"One of them ended up in the ER, but I didn't put him there. He might have demonstrated too much initiative. Not everyone likes a go getter."

"So it won't happen again?"

"I didn't say that. Firstly, the firebugs were operating at someone else's instigation. I haven't had a chance to confront him yet. I'll do that tomorrow, but I don't anticipate much more than a denial. The only positive is that the attack was aimed at Moxie and me rather than you, and the person responsible may now have had his fun. Also, if he wants anything else thrown, he'll have to do it himself or go on a hiring spree. On the other hand, you remain a target for every other coward who secretly misses the days of lynch mobs. It's not going to be easy for you."

"Nevertheless," she said, "I want to go back."

"Then we'll continue with the protection detail: obvious at first, as now, but less so as time goes on. The Fulcis will need assistance, because I can't keep asking them to cover it all unaided."

I thought of Mattia Reggio. Whatever my reservations about him, he could be relied upon for work of this type. He and the Fulcis could agree on a roster between them.

"But the costs are mounting, right?" said Colleen.

"We'll do our best to keep them down."

"And all to prevent a prosecutor from turning me into a trophy on her wall."

For the first time, I detected something resembling real rage. Good, I thought. She had a right, even a responsibility, to be angry. This was a fight, and she could either stand there and let her opponents brutalize her into submission or start counterpunching. I now realized that the first step was for her to stop hiding and return home.

"Which is why we can't let Erin Becker win," I said.

As quickly as it had manifested itself, that brief demonstration of inner strength was gone, like a match flaring and dying.

"How is that going for us?" she asked.

Even though I remained convinced that it was better if she heard directly from Moxie about any progress on the case, I wanted to offer her something. Hope, however faint, remained hope.

"Mara Teller paid for her registration to the forum with a money order," I said. "I have a lead on the man who may have purchased it for her."

"Why didn't she buy it herself?"

"Because she didn't want to be remembered, which means she may be known locally."

"Just so she could attend a conference, or sleep with my husband?" Colleen looked puzzled. "It doesn't make sense."

"I spoke with your therapist. She said you voiced a suspicion that your husband might have been unfaithful in the past, conceivably with the same woman. You never mentioned anything about that to me."

"It was just a feeling I had when I first discovered the affair, but there was no proof. I was worried that I was jumping at shadows or creating false memories. I came to accept that I might have been mistaken. But even if I wasn't, would Mara Teller really have gone to all that trouble to renew some old acquaintance with my husband? It's an affair. It may be unsavory, but it's not a crime."

"Abducting a child is, though," I said. "I keep leaning toward the possibility that she was less interested in your husband than in Henry."

"So, what? Stephen shared the layout and security details of our house with her as foreplay?"

"She might have coaxed him into discussing his travel plans with her. If she was targeting your son, it would be easier to take Henry when there was only one adult in the home."

Colleen stared at her bare feet. The nail polish, I saw, was gone.

"An adult who was depressed, and drinking too much wine," she said quietly. "An adult who was capable of sleeping soundly through her son's abduction."

That also bothered me. Had the opened bottle of wine been available for examination, we could have established whether it had been tampered with. But if that was the case, either Mara Teller had gained access to the bottle or someone close to Colleen had spiked it. From what Colleen told me, that could only have been her mother or husband. But it was idle speculation. The bottle was long gone.

"We're not going down that route again," I said.

"You may not be," said Colleen, "but I am."

I changed the subject.

"Did your husband ever mention an ex-girlfriend named Beth Witham?"

Colleen gave up on staring at her feet.

"Sure. He went out with her for a while, before we met."

"A long while?"

"A couple of years. They broke up six months before Stephen and I became an item."

"Do you know why they broke up?"

"He said she was a bitch. She wasn't always, but she turned into one—though that's what a lot of men say about their exes, isn't it? It may well be untrue. Is she involved in this?"

"Not beyond her past connection with your husband." I tried to find a nice way to ask the next question, but there wasn't one. "Colleen, did Stephen ever abuse you in the course of your relationship?"

"Did he hit me, you mean?"

"Hitting would be one form. There are others."

"No," she said. "I mean, he's grabbed me once or twice, usually during arguments over money, or the amount of time he was spending away from home. His fingers left marks after, because I bruise easily. He was always apologetic, but I might have provoked him. I'd do that sometimes, just to get a reaction, and remind him I was in his life."

The more I learned about the Clarks' marriage, the less appealing it came to seem. Obviously, I'd encountered worse, but it struck me as dysfunctional in a grindingly depressing way.

"Would you say your husband has a temper?"

"It may sound strange after what I've just told you, but no. Even during the worst of our fights, there was something half-hearted about his participation. Stephen doesn't really get angry, the same way he's never been what you might call excessively happy on any occasion I can recall, not even on our wedding day. The only thing that really engages him is work—and money, but the two go together for him. It wouldn't be enough for Stephen to win the lottery. He'd have to earn his wealth, so it could be an indicator of success in his professional life. His problem is that he's not good enough to reach the level he aspires to, not without outside help, but if you go looking for assistance in business, it can come across as a sign of weakness. It's complicated. Even when Stephen cultivated my father, I could see that it bothered him. He'd have preferred to be a self-made man, but that wasn't an option, and still isn't. It's made him bitter. I wonder what he'll be like when he's old. I don't think it'll be pleasant to witness."

Some of which echoed the opinions expressed by Colleen's mother.

"And yet you stayed with him," I said.

"I love him—for all his flaws, or because of them. I don't need him to be a corporate big shot. I just need him to be a good man, a good husband, and a good father. But I understand now that some or all of those things may be beyond him. They're not in his nature, or it could be that he ought to have found himself a different woman to marry. Beth Witham might have been the one, but I doubt it. Last I heard, she was working as a waitress, because Stephen mentioned that he'd seen her serving at a diner. That would never have been good enough for him, because he couldn't have introduced a waitress to his fancy friends. You still haven't told me why you're asking about her."

"A source claims Stephen didn't break up with Beth," I said, "but that she dumped him after he beat her."

Colleen shook her head.

"I don't believe that, not about Stephen."

"Regardless, I'm going to speak with her tomorrow."

"Why?"

"If your husband did hurt her, I want to know the circumstances."

"No, it doesn't sound like Stephen."

"You don't think he's capable of it?"

"It's not that," said Colleen. "I just can't see him caring enough to bother."

She pushed herself from the kitchen counter.

"I'll be gone when you return," she said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I really don't want to spend another night here. It's too quiet. I keep thinking I hear a child's footsteps at night, and they're not Henry's."

I did not reply, except to say that I'd ask one of the Fulcis to come collect her. She didn't object. Then, quite unexpectedly, she walked over to me and kissed the corner of my mouth.

"Thank you," she said. "I think you're an extraordinary man. But you shouldn't be out here alone. If you are alone."